This blog is intended as a bulletin board to show the quilts I've been making on my vintage and treadle sewing machines. My husband and I collect antique and vintage sewing machines and I use them to make all my quilts. Here are some of the results.

Monday, 14 May 2007

Colonial Ladies Yard Sale Quilt

I picked up this quilt at a yard sale on Saturday! It's all hand appliqued and handquilted! It was made by the lady's grandmother, who went to a nursing home. The lady had no interest in it at all. It was extremely filthy and smelled like smoke, but I asked her what she wanted for it. She said $5.00! Well, for that price, I could see if I could clean it up a bit. I've soaked it all weekend in Amaze by Sunlight. This is what the quilt looks like (it's still wet :-):

The right side of the quilt:

There are brown stains on parts of the quilt...this blue lady has the worst stains:

There are also stains along the middle fold up and down and across. The lady said her grandmother had stored it in a trunk, so I'm not sure if the stains are from that or from nicotine. This quilt reeked like cigarette smoke! The smell is out of it now, but the stains are very stubborn!

Here you can see the stains along the center:

It seems someone has tried to bleach the quilt in the past and spilled on the edge:

I haven't really decided yet whether I like this quilt :-). I'm not fond of the orange with the pink, but there was something about this quilt that made me pick it up. It just seemed such a shame that this quilt wasn't being appreciated.

What a darling quilt - and a super buy. It is sad when families don't appreciate the work that went into a quilt, all that love in each stitch. I've always wanted to make that pattern, and the colors are just lovely. Thanks for sharing.

About Me

I have been quilting since 1989 and do most of my quilting on a 1951 Singer 15-88 treadle sewing machine. My husband and I collect antique and vintage sewing machines and enjoy finding, cleaning, restoring and sewing on them together. Well, my husband doesn't do much sewing :-). But, when we demonstrate machines at museums or other shows, we have a stack of patches ready. Someday, there will be enough four patches to make into a quilt!